Abstract

Triggered by rather surprising findings that respondents in Asian cultures are more risk-seeking and more overconfident than respondents in other cultures and that the reciprocal predictions are in total opposition, four experiments were designed to extend previous collective-culture oriented researches. Results revealed that Singapore 21, which is a vision of Singapore in the 21st century and has highlighted the promotion of a collective culture, did not advocate greater risk-seeking but led to weaker overconfidence; the knowledge of "financial help from social network" did not permit prediction of risk preference but the knowledge of "the value difference between possible outcomes" did; the social network could be viewed not only as a positive "cushion" but also as a negative "burden" in both gain and loss domains of risky choices; the predictions of the risk-as-value, risk-as-feelings and stereotype hypotheses were not consistent with the predicted risk preferences of others but the predictions of the economic-performance hypothesis were consistent with the predicted risk preferences as well as the predicted overconfidence of others. The implications for cross-cultural variations in overconfidence and for cross-cultural variations in risk-taking were discussed.